By Don Trello
The Laker/Lutz News Correspondent
Sunlake athletic director Russ Schenk is poised to receive a national honor in recognition of his dedication of more than 30 years to the sport of wrestling.
Schenk, who stepped down this year as Seahawks wrestling coach, will receive the Lifetime Service to Wrestling Award from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame at an honors banquet in Stillwater, Okla. in August.
“I’m very honored and humbled to have this opportunity,” Schenk said. “I have a great wife, and I’ve been very fortunate to work with awesome coaches and assistant coaches. I’ve been blessed in a number of different ways.”
Schenk’s coaching career started in 1986 when he was hired to lead the wrestling program at Orlando Oviedo High. He went on to compile a 302-82-2 dual meet record at eight schools before leaving the head-coaching job at Sunlake.
Schenk’s accomplishments extend to his own time on the mat where he was an undefeated Florida high school state champion in 1982 wrestling for Tarpon Springs.
“I was Tarpon’s first state champ at 158 (pounds),” Schenk said. “I also finished fifth in the country in Greco Roman that year. One of the guys I lost to was Kevin Jackson (1992 Olympic freestyle gold medalist). I had wrestled him in high school nationals and lost by two points.”
Schenk went to the University of Central Florida on a scholarship after high school where he won a NCAA Regional title in 1984 and was an All-American. He also wrestled in the USA Olympic Trials in 1984 and 1992.
“I always believed wrestling is the greatest sport there is,” said Schenk, who came back from a 1988 knee surgery. “It teaches you to persevere and rebound and comeback. It builds character. It helps lay a foundation for future success.”
First-year Sunlake coach Eric Rapp was an assistant to Schenk last season.
“We are very similar as far as attitudes and personalities,” Rapp said of Schenk. “Our differences are life experiences. As far as wrestling goes, I can’t compare to him. He could easily coach at any college.”
Schenk is still involved in wrestling at Sunlake as an assistant to Rapp and is also the junior varsity coach.
“My son, Storm, was a freshman at Mitchell last year, so I sat in the corner and watched when we wrestled them,” Schenk said. “I didn’t want a conflict of interest. My son is going to compete at the high school level for three more years, so I stepped down as head coach at Sunlake.”
Schenk started and ran wrestling camps while at Culver Academies in Indiana. He continued them after returning to Florida and started the World Class Wrestling Club (WCWC) in 1998.
WCWC is a USA Wrestling sanctioned club with between 30 and 40 members, who are mostly in high school. The club doesn’t operate from Oct. 22 to the end of the state high school tournament.
“I think Florida wrestling isn’t bad, and I think this area is pretty successful,” Schenk said. “We set short-term goals, but the most important thing is to get a kid to buy in; run, watch their weight and show up for practice. Kids don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Schenk returned to Florida and spent two years as coach at River Ridge before coming to Sunlake in 2009.
“I’ve been very fortunate to walk into a lot of programs with awesome assistant coaches that were in the rebuilding stage,” Schenk said. “I think one of the dreams is turning programs around.
“Successful programs come from the quantity of your wrestlers,” Schenk continued. “The quality will come if there is discipline. There are no prototypes. Any type of body can be successful; strong, weak, heavy, skinny.”
